


Chasteberry, Hasteberry

by CatsofTzfat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Established Relationship, F/M, Family Feels, Fertility Issues, Fluff and Humor, Impregnation, Light Angst, Married Life, Mild Sexual Content, Multiple Birth, Potions, Pregnancy, Severus Snape Lives, everyone is on the edge of having a mental breakdown, poor sev is very stressed about this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-07 17:22:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19089616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatsofTzfat/pseuds/CatsofTzfat
Summary: Voldemort is dead. The wizarding world is springing forth new life in the wake of victory. Everyone's busy getting married and starting families... Everyone but Hermione and her broody husband, Severus Snape.But she wants a child of her own. Snape's not too thrilled about it. But the problem is that both of them have little chance of conceiving. Can a potion help bring them a little bundle of joy? Certainly!....But this kind of magicalwayscomes with a price.





	Chasteberry, Hasteberry

**Author's Note:**

> In this world, no one hesitated before they started to have kids. 
> 
> Side pairings include : Harry/Ginny, Draco/Luna, Ron/OC, Neville/Millicent.

Severus stared at the sonogram screen. The moving images danced across the computer, laying out the truth of the muggle doctor’s words. Poppy said the same thing. Just the same. Yet, he nor his wee wife could believe it. They were aiming to have a baby—nerve racking as it sounded—but to actually see the fruits of their labor before his very eyes… And to such lengths…

“I can’t believe it,” Hermione breathed, hand over her mouth. Her mother was equally gobsmacked, standing as still as stone as Severus sat in the plastic hospital chair, feeling like any moment he would wake up.

They were really going to have a baby. 

No, not a baby. 

_Babies._

~.~.~

(Three Months Earlier)

“I want to have kids.”

Snape, on the verge of sleep, opened his eyes to stare at her in confusion. Had he heard her right?

“Pardon?”

“Kids. You know, offspring? How life goes on?”

He frowned. “Hermione, I told you before…”

“I know, but there’s this potion…”

Hermione knew to expect the heavy sigh that emitted from her once-professor. They had only visited the baby topic once, and that was hours after being married. Marriage between them was enough to shake the Wizarding world alone. Snape was declared the unsung hero after the war when all was said and done. Harry Potter himself shouted from the rooftops that this so called horrid man was more brave and true than any other. However, Severus Snape was still the surly, misanthropic bastard he always was. The fact that he and Hermione had gotten married for the sake of the war, and his own should he survive, was barely enough to not cause the magical population to completely go to Hell. The fact that they fell in love along the way was stranger than the thought of Voldemort giving up evil to be an exotic belly dancer. 

Despite having shunned each other when Albus forced them into an unbreakable handfasting vow, somehow through the terrors of the war they found love in strange places. When Voldemort was killed, they both let out a sigh of relief and all but ran away to a private island to live as hermits. 

Both of them wanted a quiet life. Snape, still surprised to have lived the second war, wanted to give up fighting and spying and lying, and just wanted to retire in a dark room with his books and potions. Hermione had had her share, too. Being on the run for a whole year with two teenage boys, forced to part from her husband, and fighting for their lives and never knowing when they were ever really safe took its toll. Not to mention the physical (and mental) torture both of them went through.

Yet in the very early days of their so called marriage (she was just seventeen!), she asked if he wanted an heir. They hadn’t used protection, she realized belatedly after they had to consummate, thereby sealing the vow.

“I had a vasectomy,” he told her frankly. “When I was in the Dark Lord’s court, there were… revels. I could make do most of the time by saying I was incompetent, or I just wasn’t interested, but sometimes I had to get dirty to get information for Dumbledore. Women in those revels would love to ensnare a Death Eater close to the Dark Lord. Status, money, power. I heard talk of them taking fertility charms and potions beforehand. And as good as… our lord was, when a woman came with child with one of his men’s bastards, he forced them to marry. I could not risk it. And taking contraceptives each time I was called to his side was too tedious, not to mention time consuming and risky. What was I suppose to do? Carry potions around me all day? Besides, I don’t… _do…_ relationships. A little snip-snip from a muggle doctor was all it took.”

Hermione was all too happy to accept that. She was young, and wanted to have a future that didn’t involve being an all time housewife. Who had time for kids in the middle of a bloody war? And when it was over, all she and Severus wanted was a quiet, simple life. 

But then she started thinking.

Her nineteenth birthday was coming up, and she was out looking for a good muggle wine to bring to her parents when she and her husband came over for dinner. The Grangers had their memories returned shortly after the war, and, expectedly, freaked out over the thought that their only daughter had fought in a war that sounded like it came from a storybook. A war meant for adults. In their eyes she was still their little girl, and it only added to their horror when she told them she had married Professor Snape, the most intimidating teacher at Hogwarts—in her Sixth year no less! Their pleas to get a divorce and return to the muggle world were shot down. Her marriage to Severus was permanent, and she could not give up magic. 

It bothered them that Severus was twice her age (he was still young, as far as wizards went), and that he was her professor (he didn’t like it either), but they finally managed to accept them when they saw how much they were devoted to each other.

Hermione was passing the aisles in the super store when she heard the sound of a baby crying. 

She looked up and found a young twenty-something mother fussing over a wailing infant, desperately trying to settle it down. The mother had dropped her purse and all its contents were spilling out, her face pinched on the verge of a meltdown, and everything else seemed to be falling apart. In that moment Hermione was glad to be young, in love, and baby-free. However, she came rushed over to help pick up the other woman’s thinks. “Oh, thank you, thank you,” she repeated, bouncing her screaming son. “Please, hold him for a moment? I need—“ The witch didn’t catch the end of what the older woman was saying, as the wrapped up bundle was shoved into her arms.

The baby stopped crying for a split moment, and opened glassy blue eyes to stare at the bushy haired girl’s bewildered brown eyes. His puffy face was red and tear-stained, spit on the corner of his little red mouth. He was so… tiny. After the shock of suddenly finding herself with an armful of _infant_ faded away, Hermione was filled with fear. How was she suppose to hold this thing? How fragile was a baby? What if she dropped it? How could she get it to stop crying? Was she suppose to leave it be or try to calm it down? Numbly and not sure what to do, she bounced the baby as it’s cries started back up. Curious, she adjusted her arms and held it closer to her chest, feeling a warm flutter in her belly when her breasts flatted against the little body cradled to her chest. 

Hermione had no idea how long she stood there bouncing/rocking the slowly quieting baby, but it stopped and appeared to doze off. Mute, she looked up and found the mother of the baby come back, thanking her profusely for having watched her darling boy. When the baby was transferred into another set of arms, the young witch shocked herself by asking, “Is it worth it?”

The woman blinked in confusion, but followed her gaze, which was locked on the quiet infant. 

“It’s a two person job,” she said, serious. “If you have one of your own do it with someone who you know will stick with you through it all. But, when your baby’s first placed in your arms…” the mother then had a glossy, loving look that unnerved Hermione. “It’s unconditional. Husbands, boyfriends, fiancés… they come and go. But your baby? Unconditional.”

Hermione grabbed a wine at random and left the store in deep thought.

She forgot about it soon after, but as she laid beside her husband that night, she entertained the thought of having a baby. That muggle woman, and any mother she had known, said a mother's love was unconditional. But how could she possibly love someone or something more than Severus? She couldn’t wrap her head around it. Shrugging, she slung a leg over her gruff bedfellow. He grunted, letting her press up against his scarred back as they slipped into a deep sleep.

Nearly a year later the Snapes found themselves at 12 Grimmauld Place to be named little James Sirius Potter’s godparents. Her husband looked on in what looked like an annoyance to most, but she saw the twinkle in his eye as the baby was all but dumped into her arms. She got that flutter in her chest when she held her best friends’ firstborn for the first time.

The very next day she got word that Ronald had gotten a girl pregnant. To avoid scandal they hastily eloped (much to the whole Weasely family’s dismay). The baby was expected in six months. He came up to Hermione and asked, rather timidly, if she would be interested in being the baby’s godmother. 

The week after, Severus told her over dinner that his godson Draco and her friend Luna had just had their own baby that morning. If hers and Severus’s marriage wasn’t the weirdest, it was Draco and Luna’s. The baby was named Pluto Xenophilius Malfoy. The young couple asked them to be the godparents.

Even Neville, dear sweet Neville, surprised them all by marrying a Slytherin—one Millicent Bulstrode. They were expecting twin girls in three months! Again, Hermione and Severus were asked to be godparents.

Everyone was having babies, and they all thought for some bizarre reason that they would make great godparents. How come? Hermione was the brightest witch of her age, and she was training to be a mediwitch, in hopes that she could take over Madame Promfrey one day. But she was an only child, and besides the boys, she liked the company of older, mature people. She was so terribly awkward around kids. And Severus, though a teacher, didn’t have much patience for the younger years, and after much debate with Minerva managed to be allowed to teach two classes—advanced potions and seventh-year DADA. Being deputy headmaster was hard enough, and he voiced that all he wanted was to research potions and to fuck his young wife on every available surface. In those exact words, much to Minerva’s chagrin. A lot of new, most of them young, teachers were added to the staff. 

Hermione realized something the middle of May of 2000, two years after the war, as she and little Teddy Lupin went out for a walk in Hogsmeade, eating ice cream and trying to spot gnomes in the bushes. Teddy was technically Harry’s charge, but she was his godmother and today she was more than happy to babysit. Ginny was still recovering from the birth (it had been a difficult pregnancy and birth), Harry was called away on Auror business, Molly wanted to have some one-on-one time with her first grandchild, and Severus was busy teaching.

The young witch sat at a bench and finished off her treat. She fussed over her happily babbling godson, wiping the chocolate off his face. Hermione was busy muttering about how he had gotten it in his ever-changing hair (which was a bright yellow at the moment), but looked up to the sound of a loud family walking past. It wasn’t a young couple, but they had one baby in a pram and the mother looked ready to pop out another one. 

Hermione blinked and looked around. Another couple had a baby, barely walking. And another couple was expecting.

When she whipped her head in both directions, she saw it.

Babies. 

Everywhere.

Of course! It happened when wars were over. The stress of losing loved ones vanished, the joy of couples reuniting radiating for miles, the need to rebuild. New jobs, new joys. People got excited for new beginnings, and new relationships came with it. A pretty good example was the end of World War II. The generation that came about it were called Baby Boomers. 

Hermione blinked again, freezing at the realization. All of her friends had gotten married so fast after the war. Harry and Ginny wasted no time, once most of the Death Eaters and war criminals went through trial. Ron ran through girls quicker than a horny rabbit. Couples she never imaged together professed ever-lasting love. 

Everyone was at ease, and with the fear of Voldemort gone for good the birth rate shot up like a bullet. And she had no idea when it would come down. What she did know was that Hogwarts would have to prepare for bigger classes.

When she got home and put Teddy down for a nap, she sat in her husband’s favorite recliner and stared at a wall of books. Had she ever really put serious thought into the idea of having kids? It had been a passing thing in the past. Before she discovered she was witch, she grew up with the ideology that she would go to school, get a good job, find a good man, get married, have a kid, and sit back and watch them do the same. As far as having children, that was as detailed as her imagination got. 

But Hermione thought back to the fluttering feeling when she held Harry and Ginny’s newborn. Those glassy blue eyes of the muggle woman’s infant. The baby bumps on her female friends. Teddy’s crooked smile. She gasped and clutched her thought as a sudden, near-violent desire—no, a need—washed over her. She imagined herself rocking in a white wooden rocking chair, feet propped up and looking down at a baby with black hair and brown eyes as she breastfed beside a fire. Severus coming home after a long day at work and kissing the top of her head, and his baby’s head. 

It was so abrupt of a desire, but it was no passing musing either. It was fierce, and no mater how hard she tried to shake it off it persisted. 

Soon after, Hermione started gazing longingly at the couples around her as babies were announced to be expected, being born, or taking their first steps and words. But not once did she ever think of leaving Severus for someone with a high sperm count. 

If she liked the idea of being a mother, then she adored Severus Snape. Once upon a time she looked at him with begrudging respect mixed in with fear and suspicion. Now, all she saw was his dear face, and a man she connected to with so deeply it made her want to cry. It was frightening when she realized she was falling in love with her own husband. He expected to die and bleed out on the floor of the Shrieking Shack, but Hermione couldn’t leave him there. She couldn’t loose him. Impulsively, against Ron and Harry’s wishes, she stayed and managed to keep him alive long enough until he was taken for professional help. If she had a soulmate it was someone who understood her intellect and could keep up with her young fast mind. Ron was fast, but only in sports. Severus, oddly enough, completed her in everyday. When she first came to Snape at St. Mungo’s, Hermione didn’t expect him to cry out his feelings. Perhaps he was too humbled by the wizarding world proclaiming him a hero, all for the sake of his first love’s son, or in too much pain or doped up on potions. He never broke down like that again but she knew for certain he loved her as fiercely as she loved him. Though he was more mellow these days, Severus was still feared by most people, with his sharp wit and sneering remarks. To this day he still calls her his little Know-it-All.

So if she was going to be having anyone’s babies it was going to be Severus’s. 

Vasectomies could be reversed, but it was expensive and didn’t always work. And it takes two to tango. Hermione had herself checked out as just a caution after the war—Jean Granger let her daughter know that she had miscarriages before, as did her mother, and her mother’s mother. Madam Pomfrey just smiled and said Hermione should take potions to ensure the health of any and all future pregnancies. Nevermind that Hermione said she and Severus weren’t planning on having any.

But as for Severus… Magic might be able to reverse a vasectomy, as far as theory goes. Most magical contraceptive ways could be reversed, yet this was physical… Hmmm. Hermione jumped into secret research and, after hours and days, and hiding in the library from her husband, found a very old, but very promising potion…

Just weeks before Hogwarts’ 2000-2001 term begun, Hermione finally popped the question.

Her husband came to their courters looking tired and ready to fall into bed. Kissing him hello, which he just grunted and bumped his head against hers, she followed him into the bedroom and laid down beside him as he collapsed onto the mattress. Right as he was beginning to doze, still in his teaching robes and his hair a bit oily from hanging over potions to stock the hospital wing with all day, she told him she wanted to become a mother.

“There’s a potion for everything, Miss Granger,” he said flatly. Married for nearly three years and he still called her Miss Granger, though she was rightfully Madame Snape. Figures, since she loves calling him her Professor.

“I know, but look,” she says, and pulls the large dusty old tome from the bedside drawer. She plops it down in her lap as she sits up, opening it to the page. Her husband groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. 

The potion had an Ancient Greek name, but the book was completely written in Latin, and the name was translated to _Fides Parentis_. It was a potion for both the male and female to be taken at once—and, specifically meant for physical reasons why the couple could not conceive. It sounded so promising, so perfect. It might not fix Severus’s vasectomy completely, but until the potion wore off both of them would be richly fertile. Was it too much to ask for one baby of their own?

“There are reasons people don’t use old magic,” Severus grumbled, propping himself up on his elbow to look at the old pages. It wasn’t a simple potion, but nothing like Polyjuice. In fact, he mused as he looks over the ingredients, it was similar to Amortentia, but called for common herbs that could be found in muggle places. The catch was how to prepare the ingredients. 

“Old magic?”

He wiped down the Greek lettering at the head of the page. “All, if not most of old magic comes with a price. In the Dark Ages, wizards and witches would swindle muggles into accepting their magic, but all of them would regret it later. Hence the phrase ‘be careful what you wish for’. Even a simple healing spell used with old magic could give the person a terrible migraine in return. You’ve heard of Rumpelstiltskin? Found a way around that by forcing the people who dealt with him to give something in return. The fairytale of him and the spinner’s daughter is extremely exaggerated. They just hated him because he tried to be fair. Killed himself so that the magic used to turn the straw into gold wouldn’t kill her newborn, when she refused to give it to him. It began the New Magic age, but you should know this from History? Has that old ghost taught you lot nothing?” 

Hermione stopped listening when he explained how bad the price of old magic could be. She immediately grew wary. Would this potion have a price? What could it possibly take—would any child begotten from this potion die after a certain time? Would she loose her life in exchange for the baby’s? Would Severus? A million other negative outcomes flooded her mind, until she pursed her lips and tried to remember anything promising from the more modern day potion and spell books she went through.

“But this is a rather obvious brew… It could easily be done without having to use anything risky…” Severus shook himself, but his words were caught by Hermione. Damn, shouldn’t have said anything. 

“Severus, I know we said we wouldn’t, _couldn’t_ , have children but…”

He sighed and laid back down. All he wanted to do was sleep but now he was wide awake, yet still fucking tired. He loved Hermione, but this was the last thing he wanted to chat about. Besides, hadn’t they put the whole Baby Talk away in the very beginning? “What brought this on?”

“It’s just…” She bit her lip. “Everyone’s having kids. And—“

“And adding another would just give the wizarding world another mouth to feed in the masses of other brats.”

“Oh, don’t say that,” she said, and meant it to be joking but it came out harsh. “I’m sorry. But, seeing all my friends and those I fought with…I want…”

“You… want to be a mother.”

“Yes,” she said solemnly. “At least let’s have _one_. I’m not asking for a houseful!”

“Don’t look so guilty about it,” he snapped. “Have you really thought about it? They come into this world screaming and crying, and all they do is eat and shit and sleep. If we manage to not starve or drop it, and find that it’s miraculously survived to the age of eleven, then we will have to suffer through trying to get it through school—then they leave and we’re left drained and old. No. Not for me.”

Hermione shut the book and turned to him after staring at him for a long, agonizing minute. 

At her husband's passionate little speech on how terrible parenthood was, her heart clenched in pain. Yet it made her realize how much she had been obsessing over the prospect of being a mother for the past several weeks. She wanted a little boy or girl running around their small yet homey Hogwarts courters, snuggling up between them in bed. His cunning and her fierceness all rolled into one...

“Severus,” she started, concerned. “Is the reason why you don’t want child because of _your_ parents?”

He winced.

“You are nothing like your father. I know for a fact you would never _suffer_ through a child’s youth, despite what you say otherwise. Secondly, I am not your mother. I’m not neglectful.”

“I never said that!”

“No, no you didn’t. But just… think about it. A little you. A little me. Running around the castle with a whole staff at his or her heels. We’d probably never have to worry about finding a babysitter to have a little us-time. And with all our wits and bravery wrapped into one? I tremble to think what they could accomplish in this world in eighteen years. The Snape name lives on in a new glory!”

Severus sighed. “I’ll… think about it. And for Merlin’s sake turn the lights off so I can get some bloody sleep.”

~.~.~

He cracked after just two weeks.

Harry called Hermione some few days later to ask if she can look after James and Teddy so he could take Ginny out (second time outside the house since giving birth [Ginny was finally looking better, thank Merlin]). Seeing her ginger friend so worn after the birth had put a good dose of fear in her in regards to reproduction, but they were _witches_ with _magic_ , and not all pregnancies were the same.

She happily agreed and all but ran to the Potters’ place. She hugged her friends bye and promised not to cause too much trouble, haha. Kretcher was there, eyeing her warily but no longer a muggle-born hater.

With the elf’s help she cleaned and changed both boys. She swaddled little James up and set him in a sling across he chest, and set Teddy in a pram with a bowl of cereal and his favorite blanket. Putting a notice-me-not charm on his hair so muggles don’t notice, she set out on a happy little walk. Unable to help it, she imagined if it would be like this if she had some of her own. No less happy too care for her godchildren, of course.

“It’s sickening how happy you look,” drawled a familiar voice. Hermione almost jumped in surprise as most of her attention was on entertaining Teddy, but quietly enough so that little James could sleep against her bosom.

Her dour husband came up behind her, arms behind his back. He was dressed down in dark professional muggle attire. It wasn’t quite the same without his billowing robes, but he looked as severe as ever. But she could see beyond that, and simply saw the man she loved. 

Teddy twisted in his pram so he could see the man, and let out a gummy, half-toothed smiled. “U'cle Sev’us!”

Severus frowned, but didn’t fight the moniker. “My wife has left me for a Potter and a Lupin. My worst nightmare.”

Hermione laughed and playfully swatted his chest, but cursed under her breath as it jostled James. But he didn’t stir. “I won’t lie,” she sniggers. “They have stolen my heart.”

“Pity. Now, wife, are you going to hurry up and put the little devils to bed? Your husband needs you.”

“Oh, he does, does he?”

He grumbled and bent his head down, being a whole head and then some taller than her, and buried his nose in her hair. “No classes, no brats. I desire to spent time with my wife.”

Hermione’s raging hormones to mother gave way to the raging hormones of a teenage. She pressed her thighs together, but held her ground. “And what shall we do, husband? Shag on Harry and Ginny’s bed?”

His face twisted, but the mischief didn’t leave his dark eyes. “Where else? The nursery?”

The thought of riding him on Ginny’s nursing chair was both disturbing and oddly arousing. The fact that it belonged to Ginny didn’t matter. The idea that came with it, though, sent shivers down her spin. Hermione thought of being taken by him as she sat atop a changing table, bare thighs open as he plundered repeatedly into her. Soft green walls, a white cradle, nursing chair. Her belly round with his child.

Oddly enough it wasn’t just Hermione thinking that. As the word nursery left his lips, and his wife thought of naughty things, he thought of what it would be like to build a nursery for her. Cradles, nappies, prams, changing tables. Babies needed so much, yet they never needed those things for long. So expensive. Though they got a fairly large amount of money when they were given First-Class Order of Merlins, he was a teacher, and the pressure of being Headmaster again loomed over the horizon. He viciously told Minerva it was a bad idea if he kept the position, as children and parents alike hated him, hero or not. Let them calm a bit, with an older, Gryffindor Headmistress to lead them through the rough patches after a war. The castle still regarded him as Headmaster, though. The portraits listened to him and he could Apparate inside the school. And Minerva, though not as old as Albus, wanted to retire soon.

No one else was qualified for the position of running a school. Unfortunately. 

But Severus thought of an image he refused to entertain. Hermione as a pregnant woman. Pregnant Hermione. Pregnant with his child. 

He had such a wretched childhood. He never had a role model, at least a good one. The only things he leaned from his father were not to make too much noise and to never, ever mess with his whisky. His mother couldn’t even bother.

But Hermione was so loving and loyal she had to have some Hufflepuff in her, muggleborn or not. She would make a wonderful mother.

Another forbidden thought. Hermione, the mother. Not Hermione the pregnant witch. But a young mother, nursing a wee little babe… dark curly hair…

Why was it so… nice, to think of that? He watched as she laid a hand over Potter’s brat, and had to fight the thought of _what if that baby was ours?_

Severus cleared his thought, seeing the hazy lust in his wife’s eyes. Making a baby was the fun part. They had that down pat, at least.

“The potion book,” he said abruptly, pulling Hermione out of her daydreaming. “Where is it?”

She blinked in confusion, and then smiled.

~.~.~

Severus threw in powdered unicorn horn into the bubbling cauldron, watching as it turned into a deep red. He and Hermione stood over the work bench, adjusting the fire below the potion and giving it the appropriate stirs. It would take a week to simmer, and they were required to drink a batch before copulation. The book where Hermione first found the potion was dubious on how it would work, besides it being for both expecting parents. Though both were now on board for nappy town, neither was eager to jump into a mysterious potion without all the facts.

Though he was a potions master and it the ingredients and directions weren’t too foreign to him, this was meant for old magic, and he wasn’t sure if the theory of using modern magic would do the job it promised. Maybe make Hermione prepped for impregnation, but there was the matter of his vasectomy. If this didn’t work he would have to suck it up and go to a muggle doctor to see if he could get it reversed. Though Hermione brought up using magic to fix his problem, he didn’t want anyone pointing a wand at his—as Hermione so eloquently put it—crystal balls. 

So he called in a few favors and had several books delivered to them. The more information they could get on the _Fides Parentis_ the better. All books said it was to be taken by both parties, before copulation. In two different books, it was demanded that the couple who take it clear their schedule for a day. It reported a burst in the libido, for the first 10 hours. 

Fertilization was guaranteed, and if nothing external prevents the birth a healthy baby will happen. In regards to the old magic, it made vague remarks. Ancient magic was tricky and seemed to have a mind of its own—it was so rare these days most people scoff at it, even they even knew what it was or how to use it. It was taught in History, and made a reference or two in spells and charms, but nothing in detail. The theory was all but impossible to point down. In their research, he wished to have known more about Rumpelstiltskin. In the muggle world he was a impish cad, but in the Wizarding world he was a genius and a saint, of sorts. Rumpelstiltskin knew old magic so well he knew the outcome, and how to prevent it by taking something else.

 _Fides Parentis_ did not say what its price was, paired with the old magic. There were no records he could find of people having had violent births or monstrous young as a result. A comfort, and yet more concerning to have nothing to go on. He did not want to risk it, or risk Hermione’s health.

“If this… if this risks your health I want to know if you’re willing to terminate the fetus. I refuse to let you go through with it if it means your life.”

Hermione regarded him seriously, but nodded slowly. While she wanted to experience having a baby of her own, risking her life and leaving Severus a widower with a newborn wasn’t worth it. “Only for the sake of my health,” she promised. 

So they got to work once they informed Minerva and Poppy of their plan to have a baby. Both were overjoyed, and they all but wanted to be there as they made said baby. Could she name both of them the brat’s godmothers? Hermione joked about it. But she wanted her parents to be involved, too, and after informing Jean and David Granger of their plan they got mixed results. Jean was ecstatic about being a grandmother, but David, who never really seemed to like Severus, frowned and voiced that Hermione was too young to be a mother. She was barely twenty-one, he argued, never mind that all of her friends were busy making ankle-biters too.

And now, just a month after Severus’s birthday, they stood over the potion and prayed for the best. “What makes this potion curious is that most of the ingredients are harmless magic, by themselves. It’s the chasteberry that makes it unique.” 

_“Chasteberry?”_

“Yes.”

“Also called Vitex agnus-castus, Abraham’s balm, monk’s pepper, lilac chastetree… It was thought to be an anaphrodisiac, and sacred to the virgin goddess Hestia, goddess of hearth and home. It’s used in most herbal remedies for muggle woman who are trying to get pregnant, but it’s reported to help things like acne and menstrual cramps.”

“Yes, my little know-it-all,” he rolled his eyes, stirring the potion.

“But why chasteberry? It’s so…”

“Normal?”

“Yes!”

“Exactly. The only thing it’s good for in _our_ world is for symbolism and tea. It’s a decent nonmagical remedy for things like what you’ve so, _helpfully listed_ —things that can be made right by a little magic, shames the muggle results of chasteberry. It’s never been called for in potion making.”

“So why would…”

“My question, indeed. It’s to be grounded and prepared as a tea, with the potion added to it. It calls for exactly a tablespoon in one pot of water, each. We mix the tea, once it’s cool, with our share of the potion. Exactly this amount,” he gestures to two glass Erlenmeyer flasks, about as long as her face, but the bottom was as wide as the palm of Severus’s hand.

“We drink all that?”

“Yes. Slowly, throughout one hour.”

“What happens when we add more or less chasteberry to the tea part?”

“No idea. Not risking anything.”

“Right.”

~.~.~.~

All their fussing and preparing to bring a baby into the world somehow slipped, and within a few days of making the potion the whole wizarding world announced that its most popular couple (besides Harry and Ginny) were going to bring a little Snape into the world sometime soon. Harry all but broke down over the thought of being an uncle twice over (Ron and Harry were thick as thieves, after all), and came over and wanted to see if he could help out in anyway. He brought over Teddy, James nursing away back home with his mum-in-law. Molly was still a little pissy over the fact Hermione didn’t end up with one of her sons, specifically Ron, but in his mind he couldn’t really see ‘Mione being happy with one of the Weasleys. 

The Snape’s welcomed them in (Hermione doing all the work, Snape giving him a stern nod over a cauldron), and Hermione scooped their godson up with excited kisses.

“Anything I can help out with?” The two seemed busy, and Harry had the thought to call before coming over, but he was just to giddy over hearing that Hermione would be a mum someday. He thought she wanted to be without, especially Snape, but stranger things have happened. _Like Snape falling in love with Hermione, and vice-versa_.

“Like what? Stand over us and be witness to the child’s conception?” 

Harry made a face as Snape sneered this. Thinking of his old potions professor and the girl he regards as a sister doing the deed was not a nice thought. Something he might think of when trying to kill an erection. 

“No. Just. Hey, what’s happening here?” Harry points out, desperate to change topics. He was thinking more along the lines of offering to babysit when Snape Jr. is born, and thinking of baby names or tips on being a parent. That kind of thing. Steering the topic of sex away, he lays his eyes on the cauldron on the work table. Hermione’s face winced and he lifted a brow. 

Snape: “None of your business, Pot—“

Hermione: “It’s a fertility potion.”

Harry blinked, then scratched the back of his neck. “Aaah. I see. It’s cool.” He wilted under Snape’s glare. “I, uh, could help?”

“Besides your use of my notebook you’re no better at the art of potion making than Longbottom, Potter. I suggest you detest from such nonsense.” No way in hell was Severus risking the potion (not like they couldn’t make it again) but letting the boy take over. 

“Of course you can help,” Hermione said, smiling thinly as she bounced Teddy in her lap. “Can you prepare us tea?”

“Tea?”

The Boy Who Lived Twice watched as his best mate went off to pull a little box of dried tea, and a small pot with other tea-making things that went with a traditional, muggle tea set. This pot, though, looked like it was meant to go to a potions set. “Can you prepare it the muggle way, please?”

“Uh, yeah, I can do that!”

“But make two batches,” Snape said suddenly, startling Harry as he seemingly appeared at his side out of thin air. “Each with one teaspoon of the tealeaves. No more, no less. Do you understand?”

Harry hated it when Snape talked down to him. Though the older man hadn’t done so since he was a student, they way Snape spoke to him now hinted that this was important, and tried to drill that fact into his head without sounding like a guy desperate to be a father. Harry had no idea how tea would help with a fertility potion, but oh well, they were the experts.

Knowing he was being watched, Harry slowly yet carefully made the first batch of tea with one tablespoon ( _exactly_ , Snape’s voice drawled in his head). Hermione, sitting nearby and playing with Teddy, had her eyes fixated on his working hands. Though he was nervous about being under the watchful gazes of the two scariest people he knew, he was pleased to be useful. Hermione was busy with Teddy and what he guessed was paperwork from Poppy, and Snape over the potion. 

Teddy started squirming as Hermione set him down to set the first pot of tea to the side, handing Harry a second pot to use. He started to wiggle and he knew the boy needed the loo. But he was still potty training, sort of, and Harry impulsively reached out to take Teddy. “It’s fine, I’ll take him,” she insisted, rising up to take care of her godson. Snape’s eyes were focused on the potion and Harry brewing tea, but his black gaze watched his young wife leave the room.

Looking back down, Harry blanched. 

He had scooped out a cluster of tealeaves in the measuring spoon. Instead of scrapping the top off like he was instructed, he mindlessly dumped what was a _bit_ more than a single teaspoon. At least, Harry told himself it was a bit. A wee bit. A teeny tiny bit. He watched as the hefty tablespoon spilled out into the strainer, coloring the hot water a purplish brown. He watched it grow darker by the second, and wondered if it was bad. What was this stuff, anyway? Didn’t look or smell like any tea he knew. And, he realized as he looked at the box of tea in his hands, it wasn’t leaves, but dried little pods, varying shades of brown. Harry wasn’t sure if he liked it or not. Strange scent. 

Well it couldn’t be too bad. More good stuff in a fertility potion, the more likely it’s gonna work, right? Shrugging, worries fading fast, he set the box down and closed the lid over the second pot to let it steep. Thankfully Hermione and Teddy came back soon after. Harry, though deeply respectful of Snape, still got intimidated by the dark wizard. Thank Merlin he didn’t have to suffer more of the strained silence. 

He hugged his friend goodbye and wished them luck with the potion. Then, having already forgotten the tea thing, left with Teddy in tow whistling.

~.~.~.~

“I cannot believe you let him make the tea,” Severus drawled as he poured one of the batches of tea into the flask, pouring the required amount of potion into it. As he expected, all the tea did was dilute the potion, but it did not taint the magic within. It became a darker color of red as he swirled the tea and thick potion around until it soothed out. Hermione did the same with her flask, taking the second pot of tea. 

“Harry likes to be useful. And he was very precise when he measured the berries.”

“Obviously,” he drawled. Fine, at least the boy could do something right when it came to making something. He watched as his young, bushy haired wife mixed the tea with the potion. 

Her tea looked darker than his batch, but she brushed it aside, thinking perhaps the berries had different amounts of potency, and darkened the water more. If that was the case then the book would indeed call for a tablespoon, to guarantee the desired amount of chasteberry juice, despite “more potency than others”.

The potions master in him wanted to call it thestral-shit, nix the whole batch and start again. However, two louder voices won over. This was a very simple, non magical substance. While any amount of outside interference can ruin a potion, it’s not uncommon to sweeten certain brews with honey or sugar, without worrying it might affect the potion’s potency. This might be just to flavor the drink. The potion did have motherwort, which he hated the taste of. Mint or not he always found it bitter. Not to mention the New Mexican whiptail, which was surprisingly hard to get his hands on. What would this potion do to a woman who didn’t have a man around? A virgin birth?

And second of all he was excited. Not that he was never _not_ excited to fuck his wife’s eager little pussy, the possibility of being father was new and thrilling. He wanted to get on with it. His heart and prick were more than motivated to begin. 

He pursed his lips and let it slide. Because if Hermione trusted Harry to measure the tea properly then he would trust her. If she didn’t trust him she wouldn’t have let him help. 

After mixing their “drinks”, they gave each other wicked smiles as they took the first sip.

~.~.~.~

 _“S-Sev—!”_ Hermione cried out, face bright red and damp with sweat, tears running down her face. Her hair was in a chaotic mass around her head, not unlike a rat’s nest. Her breasts bounced which each brutal thrust from her husband. The headboard shook and beat against the stone wall, filling the dungeon room with the bed’s groaning, the heavy sounds of their breathing, and the loud slap of flesh on flesh. They were sweaty, sore, and sticky, and both had their eyes shut as if they were in excruciating pain. They went at it like deprived sex-craved deviants. 

He roared out as Hermione shook beneath him, sobbing out her climax. Thank Merlin for wards and silencing charms, or the whole fucking castle would think he was murdering her. The witch clawed at his already red back, bucking and thrashing like she was possessed. All she knew in that moment was her husband. This man she loved. This brave, strong man who fought against all odds. This man who had what had to be the world’s best cock because it was all that could cure the deep ache in her. She never thought she could get enough of him but now she had been proven wrong. Enough was enough. She wanted to sleep.

Letting out another deep groan, he came and spurted thick ropes of his fertile seed into her clenching, hungry cunt. Even as he was still coming, letting out a load that should have been impossible for a human to ejaculate, he kept fucking her and riding out their climaxes, unable to stop.

Heaving, out of breath, he gave one last jerk of his hips before his quivering muscles finally gave out. He collapsed on top of her in a hot, sticky mess, his slowly softening member slipping out of her sopping cunt. His seed was smeared almost everywhere, but he was too shaky and worn to even care about the cold press of his own spunk from a past ejaculation.

“I can’t--f-feel my l-legs,” Hermione gasped, voice hoarse when he was finally able to roll off of her. They untangled and have a halfhearted glance at their mess. Neither knew what time it was, having only two candles on either side of the bed, casting warm orange glows on their glistening bodies. Severus should have dried himself out a while ago, Hermione as well, but she was still sopping wet, and he kept giving her unbelievable amounts of semen. “‘m wet n’ hot,” she whimpers

Lord, he was too. Sex was always messy but this? No way to hide this without magic. A lot of magic. Both were still out of breath, tingling with burning, overused muscles. But still they burned for the other, and nothing seemed to sate them for long. When he was able to stop shaking, he grabbed for his wand to see the time. It was four in the morning. They had taken the potion at five in the evening. 

Neither had slept. All they had done was fuck like beasts. They were insatiable. 

Severus hadn’t had sex like this in. Ever. 

Hermione, poor sweet Hermione, looked like she was about to fall into a sex-induced coma and never wake up for the next five years. Which sounded pretty good, because he was fucking exhausted. He thought making a baby was suppose to be fun. Sex between them in the past was enough to take his breath away, even the cautious first time between them, and Hermione’s trepidation about losing her virginity to a man she barely knew, much less liked at the time. 

This wasn’t sex. Though lovely as his wife is, both of them are covered in sweat and come and he wanted a bath, wanted to eat a whole hippogriff, and sleep a hundred years. Not necessarily in that order. Her eyes were glassy, unfocused. She was barely awake. He prayed to Merlin that this was the last bout of violent love making for the day. Severus didn’t know if they could go at it again. The urge had come upon them several times throughout the night (and morning), and it came so fiercely and so savage that neither could brush it aside. 

At first it was amazing. Rough sex wasn’t unusual between them, but it was always paired with kisses and loving words, caresses and tender touches. When they finished off the potion, they sat around snuggling and talking quietly of what their child would be like. A son or a daughter? He immediately thought of a bright, polite little girl with curly black hair, brown eyes, and all of her mother’s lovely features. It startled him that he could almost hear this imagined daughter of his running around the castle and calling him Daddy. Oy.

Hermione voiced that she would love to have a son. “A son would carry on the family name, after all!” She wanted the name Snape to be known and spread out. Like they were some noble pureblood house. Second of all she knew how to handle boys, she said. It was her who looked after Potter and Weasley all these years. Though friendly with Ginny and Luna, she admitted to feeling closer to the boys, as she puts it. She wanted a rough and tumble little boy with all of his features, nose too, who somehow wouldn’t annoy him to hell and back with all of his insufferable questions.

Either way, he wanted a son or a daughter. He had to admit it, but he was too stubborn to voice it. Severus was suddenly desperate to pop a brat into his wife before she turned twenty-one (and she would in a month), so when she was forty and the brat was away from home she would be far from old, and able to see the world and do things they had planned to do before deciding to have a child. And, the idea of lowly making love to her as she was swollen with his offspring was a major turn on.

Now nothing could possibly get him hard again. At least for the next several hours. More like days…

The lust had hit them hard and suddenly. Nether made it to the bedroom before having a fast, rough go at it before the fireplace. Again, with her riding him on the recliner. Third time on the bed, a little worn out. Sixth time they both wished to have never taken that fucking potion. Was it a fertility potion or a torture device? It felt like they would simply die if they didn’t have sex, but both of them were so exhausted he couldn’t even shake a stick at it. 

They had fucked for _hours_ , barely having moments to breath in-between. Right now this wasn’t pleasant afterglow, but a crash after a marathon neither prepared for. The orgasms they just had were almost painful. They were so messy it almost disgusted him, but looking at his wife’s face let Severus realize he would still find her beautiful even if she rolled around naked in slug slime and thestral shit. 

If the potion contained old magic like he suspected, it certainly took a price. A price that left them almost hating the idea of having sex ever again. This was brutal. He actually hurt, and couldn’t begin to imagine how Hermione was. He liked to whisper dirty things to her during sex, like how he was going to make her unable to walk. Now he really doubted she’d be able to walk for the rest of the day. He wondered if she would be able to even sit up. To his horror, there was specks of bright crimson on the sheets, on her thighs. 

“Sorry…” he rasped, pressing his face against her shoulder, but they both winced, feeling overwrought and hypersensitive. 

“’s m’kay,” she mumbled, barely awake. He sighed and tried to reach for his wand again, to clean them up so they wouldn’t have to wallow in their fluids any longer. But even his hands felt heavy, and he dropped his wand to the floor. Ah, fuck it. Sleep now, magic later.

~.~.~

When they emerged from their chambers three days later, having slept and ate and little else, Hermione was glowing. He’d missed Monday classes, but he sent his silvery fox Patronus to Minerva to let her know he was out sick. Today he would be out too, and this Tuesday morning was spent as a quiet stroll on the castle grounds.

Despite achingly sore and wincing as her overused muscles burned with each step, Hermione felt alive. Severus recovered faster than she did, and found sleep more welcoming than it usually did. More sleep sounded good, but she wanted out of the castle for fresh air, a good walk to stretch her legs, and to just hold her husband’s hand.

Already, she looked like the image of motherhood. Her face was clear and her laughter was more contagious than the plague. She danced around her quiet husband, as he watched on in fond regard. Life seemed to be brighter, sounds more crisp. Smells, too, and she was almost overpowered by the flowers. It was cold out, and snowy. 

“Flowers?” He asked, snow crunching under his boots. He stood out in the white landscape, his whole form black as night besides his pale face. Hermione, a harlequin girl if there ever was one, laughed and waved a hand over where the rose bushes were, which always gave forth the darkest red roses when the warm months were here. 

“I can smell it, I think,” she mused. “Can you, Professor?”

He shook his head.

~.~.~.~

“You’re pregnant,” Poppy cheered, watching as Hermione spit into the little potion bottle and it turning a bright pink to confirm this. Their fertility potion was a success. “Oh, my dears! I’m so happy for the both of you!”

~.~.~ 

Hermione wasn’t even ten days pregnant when she threw up almost instantly when Hagrid, smelling like a heard of elephants from a long day of teaching Care of Magical Creatures, approached them to congratulate them. Poppy couldn’t quite keep it a secret that they were expecting, despite the Snape’s wanting to keep quite about it for now. 

Severus didn’t smell anything different about Hagrid, but when the half-giant was but a foot away, Hermione went pale and gave no warning when she abruptly emptied her stomach’s contents. 

Nothing stayed down her for long. Morning sickness was common, but this was getting out of hand, and they hadn’t even past the first month. Sometimes she vomited in the evenings, for no reason whatsoever. Poppy said this would pass, but when four weeks marked the calendar, he was tempted to declare this pregnancy too dangerous. The sickness was still persisting, and it grew worse and Hermione lost that newly pregnant glow to a sudden extreme case of what could only be called a bipolar disorder. 

“No!” She cried, when he wondered if this was safe. He should have tried to reverse the vasectomy and be done with it. But Hermione said that didn’t always work, and she had a history of past mothers with difficult pregnancies. “I’m having this baby! And that’s final!” And then she burst into tears.

He backed off quickly, but his anxiety did not sway.

~.~.~

Seven weeks. 

It felt like an eternity. 

Hermione, though overjoyed with starting the journey to motherhood, and being showered all around with well wishers and offers to help in anyway, was very hormonal. She cried just yesterday when he took his shirt off, and sobbed about his scars, which she already knew each of and touched all of them. She cried when Ginny came over with little James. She cried when Minerva made a passing comment of missing teaching Transfiguration. She cried when a third-year dropped his quill in the hallway. When her birthday came around, and they went to her parents’ house to celebrate at dinner, she burst out into tears when Jean whipped out Hermione’s baby photos. Startled, Mrs. Granger turned from her daughter to her son-in-law, and said grinning, “You two work _fast_.”

Sex was off the table at the moment, but Severus wasn’t complaining. He did miss her in an intimate way, but every worry he could image and then some kept him too grounded. What if the baby had some form of disorder? What if it was braindead? What if she couldn’t carry the baby to term?

Severus Snape had been through what some might say hell and back, but this was his biggest challenge yet.

His young wife, two months pregnant at twenty-one, stood before their bathroom mirror in the buff, hands on her lower tummy. He came in and draped himself over her, placing a kiss on top of her wild, untamable hair. 

“I’ve got a bump,” she said seriously. He reached out and gently covered her stomach with his right hand, and did indeed feel a little bump. But it was way too early in the game to start showing, right? Jean said she began to show around seventeen weeks, but only slightly. 

“Maybe you’re just bloated.”

Her face, hard and serious, morphed into distress. Her eyes watered. “I’m fat?”

“No!” Too late. There goes the waterworks.

~.~.~

Twelve-week mark.

Either Hermione was gaining too much weight with her unusual cravings, or the baby was developing at an unusually rapid pace. Her little bump weeks ago was swelling enough that she looked like she was a whole extra month along than she really was. Something in the back of her mind suggested that women showed sooner when they were expecting twins, but the thought of twins was too much for her mind to handle. So they went for a check-up. 

“Let’s see, dear,” Poppy said, settling Hermione in the bed as she went about to do a checkup. She had been openly pleased with the fetus’s development, proudly state that they would have a strong little lion very soon. He wasn’t sure if that was her saying the baby would be a Gryffindor, because he or she could very well be a Slytherin. Or Ravenclaw. Or Hufflepuff. Honestly, he didn’t care about rival houses anymore. But a lion indeed, because Poppy waved her wand over his wife’s proud baby bump as she looked down at her sheet of results. They could learn the baby’s gender today if they wanted. Having it be a surprise sounded fun, and let them set up a nursery with things they both liked without gender to worry about. But he also wanted to know if it was a son or a daughter. So far they called the thing growing in her ‘it’ or ‘they’, like it was some parasite. Giving it gender would make it so much more real. Severus still felt like he would wake up and find himself miserable and alone in his dank dungeons. 

Poppy opened her mouth to spout more positive things, but froze and looked over the results. “That can’t be right…”

“What?” Hermione was quick to ask, grabbing onto her husband’s hand. 

The mediwitch didn’t say anything, just straightened up and flicked through her papers. She bit her lip, eyes flickering about on the page. 

“What is it, Poppy?” He demanded.

“Nothing wrong, just… Well, it certain explains a lot. You’re not having a baby—“

“WHAT?”

“My dears, you’re having _babies!_ ”

~.~.~.~

“The magic’s all wrong! I want to see a muggle doctor for an ultrasound!”

He nodded in agreement and prayed that the magic was indeed wrong. 

~.~.~.~

“Are you serious?” Harry gasped, dropping down onto the chair, pale as a ghost. 

“No, I’m Severus,” Snape deadpanned.

“Don’t fuck around with me, Snape! That’s pretty fucking unbelievable.”

“I would rather sell my soul all over again than joke about this.”

~.~.~.~

“—I mean, how is that even possible? I mean, she’s only got two arms. Snape better do his part, and then some. They’ll have to have outside help.”

~.~.~.~

“It’s strange enough that she’s going through with this, but how can they make it out alive? Has this ever happened before?”

~.~.~.~

“I’d like to make a toast to the lovely Madame Snape, who’s expecting… how many again? What, really?”

~.~.~.~

“Hermione, love, you said you wanted a _baby!_ Singular!”

“I can’t decide what my body does, Dad!”

“You’ve got magic!”

“David! Leave our daughter alone! She’s pregnant, for God’s sake!”

~.~.~

“Uncle Severus, I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“Draco, whatever I had in me is in Hermione now.”

“A little too much, if you ask me.”

~.~.~.~

“Professor, is this a blessing or a curse?”

“Miss Granger, I’ve no idea.”

~.~.~.~

Hermione sighed sweetly as Severus slowly made love to her from behind, both of them lying on their sides as they had sleepy, slow morning sex. A lovely way to wake up, and letting them bask in blissful moments of silence and peace, all which would be taken from them the moment they left their bedroom.

He wouldn’t be taking the headmaster position anytime soon, that was for certain. He had an even bigger, scarier job waiting for him. 

Snape ran his hand over his wife’s swollen belly, the image of everything he craved twenty-one weeks ago. She honestly looked ready to pop, but he took his sweet time in slowly moving in and out of her eager little pussy. With a low groan, his young wife clenched around him and came a softer, second time that morning. He followed quickly after, amazing by how sensitive she was. 

They lay in the quiet room for a few moments as they caught their breath, nuzzling and caressing the other as they grew more awake. “Good morning,” she whispered, giggling as he nipped her shoulder. He ran his hand over her belly again, and both of them jolted in surprise when they felt a little kick against his palm.

“Someone’s awake,” she giggled, keeping his hand there to feel the little one move around. Severus sighed, letting her lace her fingers with his longer ones.

“You woke them up.”

“You did most of the work.”

“To my pleasure, I assure you, Miss Granger.”

Pregnant life was both heaven and hell. Besides the expected worries and anxieties, Hermione had to go through what all her friends to do, but times double. 

More than double, actually.

When Poppy told them they were expecting multiple births, they couldn’t believe it. They were aiming for one, but they would happily have twins, too. But the amount that the muggle doctor and the mediwitch said was ridiculous.

Septuplets. They were going to have septuplets. Seven mouths to feed, seven arses to wipe. 

This just didn’t happen. There were thousands of cases of twins, and triplets. Quadruplets happened, too, but rarely. Quintuplets had happened before, but the first known quintuplets to all survive infancy happened in the 30s. Sextuplets had happened, but few survived. 

All muggle cases of Septuplets didn’t end well. The only surviving case of a successful septuplet birth was to a wizarding couple, a hundred and fifty years ago in Iceland when the mother was cursed with an unknown spell to give birth like a dog. 

Because he and Hermione were such a “popular” couple, the entire wizarding world had their eyes on the craze of the Snapes’ septuplets. It shocked both he and his wife when people banned together to raise funds. A single baby could eat a low-income couple out of house and home. There was no telling how much it would cost to care for seven. If, he shuddered, they all survived. He felt like his soul died a little at the thought of losing a child before it could even walk, but the thought of having seven little dunderheads chasing him around was almost just as frightening.

So he should be thankful that he and Hermione weren’t alone in this.

Minerva all but demanded he and his wife (who was still trying to continue her apprenticeship under Poppy) go on maternity leave. Hermione threw a fit at this, raving on that pregnant women can work. However, all of her doctors insisted she take it easy. Perhaps a little too easy. 

The dungeons were no place to raise seven children, so somehow they found themselves being forced to move into a cottage on the outskirts of the English countryside. They both wanted to stay near Hogwarts, but several individuals demanded they go back to England. It would be much closer to Hermione’s parents and the Potter’s, and about a few miles from The Burrow. The floor was connected to all those places, plus St. Mungo’s, Hogwarts’ infirmary, and the Headmistress’s office. 

It was a nice place, and would be wonderfully quiet and just what he and Hermione dreamed about living in. 

However, it was also housing way too many people, excluding the brood growing in his wife’s womb. 

Mrs. Weasley conveniently forgot all grudges she had against Hermione. She all but adopted her and named herself the girl’s mother. Despite their differences, Hermione let the woman all but live with them to help out. He made a mental note to keep an eye on all offspring that they had, in case the red-haired Gryffindor got any ideas about claiming one of the babes as her own. Mrs. Granger could not stop herself from crying with both fear and joy every time she saw her pregnant daughter waddle by, and could not be stopped from moving in with them. Mr. Granger had no choice but to follow his wife, but still disliked his son-in-law, and glared at the other man as if this was all his fault. 

The only woman he liked to have in his company, besides his wife, Minerva, or Poppy, was Narcissa. Madame Malfoy was still waiting for her husband Lucius to end his five-year sentence in Azkaban. With her son busy with his own family, she willingly stepped in to help Hermione. Without anyone’s permission, not even from the Snapes, she moved in and had her own room put up.

The Slytherin woman and Molly did not get along, but when it came to Hermione they were thick as thieves. Sickening. 

Minerva would probably be here too, but the school kept her away. That didn’t prevent her from popping in at random times to check in on them. Potter’s wife came by when she could, with or without her children, but when Potter himself came he was glared away from the mass of clucking women. In that he and Snape found common grounds. The same went with the Weasley boys, excluding Ronald’s wife, Tulip, who had given birth just days ago. If Molly wasn’t fussing over Hermione, it was the other young mother. Still, the girl only came around once, since this was all clearly Hermione’s domain. Ronald was away as well, with his family.

Luna came to visit with little Pluto in a sling around her. She was such an odd, starry-eyed girl. What Draco saw in her Severus would never know, but only when the young Malfoys visited did he get any “male time”.

Rooms were always being altered or added, with all the extra occupants. They all wanted to know the babies’s genders, but both Hermione wanted it to be a surprise, and Severus was mildly thankful for that. He still could not believe there were seven little lives inside of his wife. The thought that they would be sons or daughters or both shook him to the core.

It went without warning that Snape was utterly pussy whipped.

David Ganger wouldn’t give him the time of day besides silently blaming him for “destroying his daughter’s future”, and the women of the house, visiting or residing, saw him as a useless bag of rocks.

If he was so much as touching his wife in the slightest affectionate way (and they weren’t fans of PDA), they would run him off by saying Hermione couldn’t be subjected to any form of stress. Like kissing her forehead was so bad.

If he chose to keep his distance, they yelled at him for reasons unknown. He was the man, he should help, they said. With what? He couldn’t get close to his wife with all these women around. Everyone was more nervous and panic-stricken than either one of them! Snape could only watch helplessly as wife looked back at him like a deer in the headlights, trapped in a crowd of matrons. 

To Snape, it looked like they only saw him as a sperm provider. They all said they expected him to “do his part”, but the only “part” he was apparently entitled to was changing nappies. Otherwise, he was disposable in their eyes. Cissy did give him the benefit of the doubt, but only rarely. And it hadn’t even been a full month since all this happened.

Molly had the gall to say he wasn’t well suited to be a parent for this kind of situation. Her sons, she said, all had siblings to help raise, unlike some people. Never mind that Snape had taught children for twenty years, or was a head of house!

Nothing here was a comforting environment. Hermione might even be worse off. All she wanted was some fucking peace.

His wife was always such an independent little woman, and though they were devoted to each other in all things, and enjoyed quiet evenings after a long day of work, she needed her space. As did he. They had found completed solitude in the other, and if they couldn’t be together they would rather be alone. Hence why having seven children was so frightening. Having a house full of people who acted like this was their responsibility and right to take over was the last straw. One of them was bound to break any moment.

“Oh, Professor,” Hermione groaned, arching her back against her husband’s bare chest. “Can’t we just sneak out the window and go to the beach? Just the two of us?”

“Hmm,” he hummed and nuzzled the back of her head, burying his nose into her hair. Please, Merlin, at least let the children have her nose, he prayed silently. “If the reports mulling about around the property don’t find us first, then the women around here might set a whole army to… rescue… us.”

“I’m serious,” she said, turning her head a bit. It was hard to roll over looking like she was eight months along, and her body pillow was in such a good position at the moment she was ill to think of moving. “I think I might actually kill someone if they don’t leave me alone. I’ve got you, I’m not completely incompetent.”

“I’ve already planned out how to make it look like all their deaths were accidents.”

“Oh, thank you.”

The whole house wanted to throw Severus into a room of his own so Hermione wasn’t “burdened” with her husband, and both her mother and Molly make it seem like they wished to sleep in the same room with the girl. That was where they put their foot down. If the women in this house got their way, Hermione would have had a melt down, and Severus would have committed a hate crime. Cissy was the only one who stood and favor of letting them share the same bed.

Their morning peace was broken by the loud, insistent knocking of one certain Weasley woman. They heard the doorknob jiggle, and both tensed up but sighed in relief, remembering they locked the door last night.

“Hermione! Severus! I do hope you two aren’t doing anything too taxing in their!”

“Too late,” he growled, and kissed her shoulder.

The heavily pregnant witch groaned. She tossed her legs about as she struggled to get up. Servus, gentle as ever, lent her a hand to pull her up. She blushed, but said nothing of her added weight or size, as he all but had an aneurysm the last time she called herself a whale. Hermione was fucking beautiful in this state, and with her hormones a little less hostile, and the morning sickness gone, she was now eager to be intimate with her husband. Both had to remember that they had to work around septuplets, but they made it happen.

Molly hadn’t been away from the door for two moments before Jean came knocking too, demanding they get up and come out for breakfast. He sent a cleansing charm on both of them and got dressed in cool, casual wear, but both of them had wicked grins like a pair of teenagers planning on doing something naught when they put on boots and trainers. If he had to brawl with all the matrons in the house just to have a walk outside with his wife, then so be it.

The moment they left the sanctity of the room they were pulled apart. Hermione was all but carried to the table and Severus was treated like a slow child when told to set the table. When Molly quite brushed him aside as Cissy and Jean tried to prop Hermione up on the couch, he met his wife’s gaze across the room. They had had enough of this nonsense. She was pregnant, not dying.

“No, we are going for a walk,” he said very firmly. He hadn’t raised his voice in a while, and since he was _pussy whipped_ as Draco called it, he had been very passive. No more Mr. Tender.

“Oh, that’s a great idea!” Jean said. “Fresh air is always good!” She turned to get her own shoes. Molly frowned, and Cissy glowered. 

“Just the two of us,” Hermione sighed, waddling over to her husband to take his hand. The three women glared at his and opened their mouths to spout exaggerations. Severus, though, sent forth the glare that silenced his most unruly classes. 

And finally, they found themselves in blissful silence as they sat outside in the garden. 

Neither spoke for a while, an tried to ignore the stares they could feel out the kitchen window. 

Hermione placed a protective hand over her swollen belly, rubbing the taut skin under her loose muggle maternity dress. She sniffled, and Snape looked at her in quiet regard. 

“I’m glad we’re not alone in this,” she admitted quietly. “But… it’s all so much. I don’t think I’ve had a chance to even think for myself since we came here.”

He nodded solemnly.

She laughed humorlessly. “I think they’ve already given them names and decided what they’ll do before Hogwarts. Hell, Mrs. Malfoy went on about Beauxbatons yesterday. At least two of our children has been fated to go.”

He grunted, very unamused. _Over my dead body._

“I have nightmares,” she whispers, and he looks at her in surprise. “I fear that if this goes on I’ll look at our children one day and they’ll have no idea who I am.”

“Both your mother and Cissy didn’t get the raise their children the way they wanted to. And Molly’s maternity side will never be quenched.”

Hermione heaved. “But they’re _my_ babies.” Severus tsked and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, to which she quietly sobbed and buried her face in his chest. “And don’t believe a word they say. The father matters, too.”

“Of course,” he agreed quietly. “Any broken child I had, in Slytherin or not, had parent issues. Those three just… want to be mothers again. They want something to do, I think. I doubt any one of the squalling imps that fall from your womb will be without someone to look after them.”

“There’s not a wizard or witch for miles that doesn’t know what’s going on with us,” she hissed bitterly. “I just want them all to bugger off.”

“You might change your mind in a year or two.”

_“Never.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there! Hope you like this little story so far!
> 
> If you'd like, feel more than free to suggest nice wizard and witch names (or even muggle names!) for the Snapes' septuplets!


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